Towards the end of the month, some divisions of the French army having left Bayonne and ascended the right bank of the Adour, it produced a corresponding movement on our side, by which our division then occupied Ustaritz and some neighbouring villages, a change of quarters we had no reason to rejoice in.
    At Arcangues, notwithstanding the influence of our messmate, "the Seigneur du Village," our table had latterly exhibited gradual symptoms of decay. But here our voracious predecessors had not only swallowed the calf, but the cow, and literally left us nothing; so that, from an occasional turkey or a pork-pie, we were now, all at once, reduced to our daily ration of a withered pound of beef. A great many necessaries of life could certainly be procured from St Jean de Luz, but the prices there were absolutely suicidical. The sutlers' shops were too small to hold both their goods and their consciences; so that, every pin's worth they sold cost us a dollar; and as every dollar cost us seven shillings, they were, of course, not so plenty as bad dinners. I have often regretted that the enemy never got an opportunity of having the run of their shops for a few minutes that they might have been, in some measure, punished for their sins, even in this world.
    The house that held our table, too, was but a wretched apology for the one we had left. A bitter wind continued to blow, and as the granary of a room which we occupied on the first floor had no fireplace, we immediately proceeded to provide it with one, and continued filling it up with such a load of bricks and mortar that the first floor was on the point of becoming the ground one; and, having only a choice of evils on such an emergency, we, as usual, adopted that which appeared to us to he the least, cutting down the only two fruit-trees in the garden to prop it up with. We were rather on doubtful terms with the landlord before, but this put us all square — no terms at all.
Our animals, too, were in a woeful plight for want of forage. We were obliged to send our baggage ones every week for their rations of corn three days' march through oceans of mud, which ought, properly, to have been navigated with boats. The whole cavalcade always moved tinder the charge of an officer, and many were the anxious looks that we took with our spy-glasses, from a hill overlooking the road, on the days of their expected return, each endeavouring to descry his own. Mine came back to me twice; but the "pitcher that goes often to the well" was verified in his third trip, for — he perished in a muddy grave.
    His death, however, was not so unexpected as it might have been, for, although I cannot literally say that he had been dying by inches, seeing that he had walked all the way from the frontiers of Portugal, yet he had, nevertheless, been doing it on the grand scale — by miles. I only fell in with him the day before the commencement of the campaign, and, after reconnoitring him with my usual judgement, and seeing that he was in possession of the regulated quantity of eyes, legs, and mouth, and concluding that they were all calculated to perform their different functions, I took him, as a man does his wife, for better and for worse; and it was not until the end of the first day's march that I found he had a broken jaw-bone and could not eat, and I had, therefore, been obliged to support him all along on spoon diet; he was a capital horse, only for that!
    It has already been written, in another man's book, that we always require just a little more than we have got to make us perfectly happy; and, as we had given this neighbourhood a fair trial, and that little was not to be found in it, we were very glad when, towards the end of February, we were permitted to look for it a little further on. We broke up from quarters on the 21st, leaving Sir John Hope, with the left wing of the army, in the investment of Bayonne. Lord Wellington followed Soult with the remainder.
    The new clothing for the different regiments of the army had, in the meantime, been gradually arriving at St. Jean de Luz; and, as the commissariat transport was required for other purposes, not to mention that a man's new coat always looks better on his own back than it does on a mule's, the different regiments marched there for it in succession. It did not come to our turn until we had taken a stride to the front as far as La Bastide; our retrograde movement, therefore, obliged us to bid adieu to our division for some time.
    On our arrival at St. Jean de Luz, we found our new clothing, and some new friends in the family of our old friend, Arcangues, which was one of the most respectable in the district, and who showed us a great deal of kindness. As it happened to be the commencement of Lent, the young ladies were, at first, doubtful as to the propriety of joining us in any of the gaieties; but, after a short consultation, they arranged it with their consciences, and joined in the waltz right merrily. Mademoiselle was really an exceedingly nice girl, and the most lively companion in arms (in a waltz) that I ever met.
    Our clothing detained us there two days; on the third we proceeded to rejoin the division.
    The pride of ancestry is very tenaciously upheld among the Basques, who are the mountaineers of that district. I had a fancy that most of them grew wild, like their trees, without either fathers or mothers, and was, therefore, much amused one day to hear a fellow, with a Tam O'Shanter's bonnet and a pair of bare legs, tracing his descent from the first man and maintaining that he spoke the same language too. He might have added, if further proof were wanting, that he also wore the same kind of shoes and stockings.
    On the 27th February, 1814, we marched all day to the tune of a cannonade; it was the battle of Orthes and, on our arrival in the evening at the little town of St Palais, we were very much annoyed to find the seventy-ninth regiment stationed there, who handed us a general order desiring that the last-arrived regiment should relieve the preceding one in charge of the place. This was the more vexatious, knowing that there was no other regiment behind to relieve us. It was a nice little town, and we were treated by the inhabitants like friends and allies, experiencing much kindness and hospitality from them; but a rifleman in the rear is like a fish out of the water; he feels that he is not in his place. Seeing no other mode of obtaining a release, we at length began detaining the different detachments who were proceeding to join their regiments, with a view of forming a battalion of them; but by the time that we had collected a sufficient number for that purpose we received an order from headquarters to join the army, when, after a few days' forced marches, we had at length the happiness of overtaking our division a short distance beyond the town of Aire. The battle of Orthes was the only affair of consequence that had taken place during our absence.
    We remained stationary, near Aire, until the middle of March, when the army was again put in motion.
    On the morning of the 19th, while we were marching along the road near the town of Tarbes, we saw what appeared to be a small piquet of the enemy on the top of a hill to our left, looking down upon us, when a company of our second battalion was immediately sent to dislodge them. The enemy, however, increased in number in proportion to those sent against them, until not only the whole of the second, but our own, and the third battalion were eventually brought into action; and still we had more than double our number opposed to us; but we, nevertheless, drove them from the field with great slaughter, after a desperate struggle of a few minutes, in which we had eleven officers killed and wounded. As this fight was purely a rifle one, and took place within sight of the whole army, I may be justified in giving the following quotation from the author of "Twelve Years' Military Adventure,* who was a spectator, and who, in allusion to this affair, says, "Our rifles were immediately sent to dislodge the French from the hills on our left, and our battalion was ordered to support them. Nothing could exceed the manner in which the ninety-fifth set about the business ... Certainly I never saw such skirmishers as the ninety-fifth, now the rifle brigade. They could do the work much better and with infinitely less loss than any other of our best light troops. They possessed an individual boldness, a mutual understanding, and a quickness of eye, in taking advantage of the ground, which, taken altogether, I never saw equalled. They were, in fact, as much superior to the French voltiguers as the latter were to our skirmishers in general. As our regiment was often employed in supporting them, I think I am fairly qualified to speak of their merits."
    We followed the enemy until dark, when, after having taken up our ground and lit our fires, they rather maliciously opened a cannonade upon us; but, as few of their shots took effect, we did not put ourselves to the inconvenience of moving, and they soon desisted.
    We continued in pursuit daily until we finally arrived on the banks of the Garonne, opposite Toulouse. The day after our arrival an attempt was made by our engineers to throw a bridge across the river above the town, and we had assembled one morning to be in readiness to pass over, but they were obliged to abandon it for want of the necessary number of pontoons, and we returned again to quarters.
    We were stationed for several days in the suburb of St Ciprien, where we found ourselves exceedingly comfortable. It consisted chiefly of the citizens' country houses, and an abundance of the public tea and fruit accommodations with which every large city is surrounded, for the temptation of Sunday parties; and as the inhabitants had all fled hurriedly into town, leaving their cellars, generally speaking, well stocked with a tolerable kind of wine, we made ourselves at home.
    It was finally determined that the passage of the river should be tried below the town, and, preparatory thereto, we took ground to our left, and got lodged in the chateau of a rich old West-India-man. He was a tall ramrod of a fellow, upwards of six feet high, withered to a cinder, and had a pair of green eyes which looked as if they belonged to somebody else, who was looking through his eye-holes; but, despite his imperfections, he had got a young wife and she was nursing a young child. The "Green Man" (as we christened him) was not, however, so bad as he looked; and we found our billet such a good one that when we were called away to fight, after a few days' residence with him, I question, if left to our choice, whether we would not have rather remained where we were!
    A bridge having at length been established about a league below the town, two British divisions passed over; but the enemy, by floating timber and other things down the stream, succeeded in carrying one or two of the pontoons from their moorings, which prevented any more from crossing either that day or the succeeding one. It was expected that the French would have taken advantage of this circumstance to attack the two divisions on the other side, but they thought it more prudent to wait the attack in their own stronghold, and in doing so I believe they acted wisely, for these two divisions had both flanks secured by the river, their position was not too extended for their numbers, and they had a clear space in their front, which was flanked by artillery from the commanding ground on our side of the river; so that, altogether, they would have been found ugly customers to anybody who chose to meddle with them.
    The bridge was re-established on the night of the 9th, and at daylight next morning we bade adieu to the Green Man, inviting him to come and see us in Toulouse in the evening. He laughed at the idea, telling us that we should be lucky fellows if ever we got in; and, at all events, he said that he would bet a déjeûné à la forchette for a dozen that we did not enter it in three days from that time. I took the bet, and won, but the old rogue never came to pay me.
    We crossed the river and advanced sufficiently near to the enemy's position to be just out of the reach of their fire, where we waited until dispositions were made for the attack, which took place as follows: —
    Sir Rowland Hill, who remained on the left bank of the Garonne, made a show of attacking the bridge and suburb of the town on that side.
    On our side of the river the Spanish army, which had never hitherto taken an active part in any of our general actions, now claimed the post of honour, and advanced to storm the strongest part of the heights. Our division was ordered to support them in the low grounds, and at the same time to threaten a point of the canal; and Picton, who was on our right, was ordered to make a false attack on the canal. These were all that were visible to us. The remaining divisions of the army were in continuation to the left.
    The Spaniards, anxious to monopolize all the glory I rather think, moved on to the attack a little too soon, and before the British divisions on their left were in readiness to co-operate; however, be that as it may, they were soon in a blaze of fire and began walking through it at first with a great show of gallantry and determination; but their courage was not altogether screwed up to the sticking point, and the nearer they came to the critical pass the less prepared they seemed to meet it, until they all finally faced to the right-about and came back upon us as fast as their heels could carry them, pursued by the enemy.
    We instantly advanced to their relief and concluded that they would have rallied behind us, but they had no idea of doing anything of the kind, for, when with Cuesta* and some of the other Spanish generals, they had been accustomed, under such circumstances, to run a hundred miles at a time; so that, passing through the intervals of our division, they went clear off to the rear and we never saw them more. The moment the French found us interposed between them and the Spaniards they retired within their works.
    The only remark that Lord Wellington was said to have made on their conduct, after waiting to see whether they would stand after they got out of the reach of the enemy's shot, was, "Well, d—me if ever I saw ten thousand men run a race before!" However, notwithstanding their disaster, many of their officers certainly evinced great bravery, and on their account it is to be regretted that the attack was made so soon, for they would otherwise have carried their point with little loss either of life or credit, as the British divisions on the left soon after stormed and carried all the other works, and obliged those who had been opposed to the Spaniards to evacuate theirs without firing another shot.
    When the enemy were driven from the heights they retired within the town, and the canal then became their line of defence, which they maintained the whole of the next day; but in the course of the following night they left the town altogether, and we took possession of it on the morning of the 12th.
    The inhabitants of Toulouse hoisted the white flag and declared for the Bourbons the moment that the French army had left it, and in the course of the same day Colonel Cooke arrived from Paris with the extraordinary news of Napoleon's abdication. Soult has been accused of having been in possession of that fact prior to the battle of Toulouse; but, to disprove such an assertion, it can only be necessary to think for a moment whether he would not have made it public the day after the battle, while he yet held possession of the town, as it would not only have enabled him to keep it, but, to those who knew no better, it might have given him a shadow of claim to the victory, if he chose to avail himself of it; and I have known a victory claimed by a French marshal on more slender grounds. In place of knowing it then, he did not even believe it now; and we were absolutely obliged to follow him a day's march beyond Toulouse before he agreed to an armistice.
    The news of the peace at this period certainly sounded as strangely in our ears as it did in those of the French marshal, for it was a change that we never had contemplated. We had been born in war, reared in war and war was our trade, and what soldiers had to do in peace was a problem yet to be solved among us.
    After remaining a few days at Toulouse we were sent into quarters in the town of Castel-Sarazin, along with our old companions in arms, the fifty-second, to wait the necessary arrangements for our final removal from France.
    Castel-Sarazin is a respectable little town on the right bank of the Garonne, and its inhabitants received us so kindly that every officer found in his quarter a family home. We there, too, found both the time and the opportunity of exercising one of the agreeable professions to which we had long been strangers, that of making love to the pretty little girls with which the place abounded; when, after a three months' residence among them, the fatal order arrived for our march to Bordeaux for embarkation the buckets full of salt tears that were shed by men who had almost forgotten the way to weep was quite ridiculous. I have never yet, however, clearly made out whether people are most in love when they are laughing or when they are crying. Our greatest love writers certainly give the preference to the latter. Scott thinks that "love is loveliest when it's bathed in tears," and Moore tells his mistress to "give smiles to those who love her less, but to keep her tears for him"; but what pleasure he can take in seeing her in affliction I cannot make out; nor, for the soul of me, can I see why a face full of smiles should not be every bit as valuable as one of tears, seeing that it is so much more pleasant to look at.
    I have rather wandered in search of an apology for my own countenance not having gone into mourning on that melancholy occasion; for, to tell the truth, (and if I had a visage sensible to such an impression, I should blush while I tell it) I was as much in love as anybody, up nearly to the last moment, when I fell out of it, as it were, by a miracle; but probably a history of love's last look may be considered as my justification. The day before our departure, in returning from a ride, I overtook my love and her sister strolling by the river's side, and, instantly dismounting, I joined in their walk. My horse was following at the length of his bridle-reins, and while I was engaged in conversation with the sister the other dropped behind, and when I looked round I found her mounted astride on my horse! and with such a pair of legs too! It was rather too good; and "Richard was himself again."*
    Although released, under the foregoing circumstances, from individual attachment, that of a general nature continued strong as ever; and, without an exception on either side, I do believe that we parted with mutual regret and with the most unbounded love and good feeling towards each other. We exchanged substantial proofs of it while together; we continued to do so after we had parted; nor were we forgotten when we were no more! It having appeared in some of the newspapers a year afterwards that every one of our officers had been killed at Waterloo, that the regiment had been brought out of the action by a volunteer, and the report having come to the knowledge of our Castel-Sarazin friends, they drew up a letter, which they sent to our commanding officer, signed by every person of respectability in the place, lamenting our fate, expressing a hope that the report might have been exaggerated, and entreating to be informed as to the particular fate of each individual officer, whom they mentioned by name. They were kind good-hearted souls, and may God bless them!

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